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Children’s Interactions with Relatively Wild Nature Associated with More Relational Behavior: A Model of Child-Nature Interaction in a Forest Preschool
Figure 1. Annotated maps of the Magnolia and Trillium outdoor nature classroom sites at Fiddleheads Forest Preschool in Seattle, WA. Interaction with nature is vital for children’s physical and psychological development. Nature preschools provide the means for such interaction, but little is known about the significance of child-nature interactions in these settings. Using a randomized time-sampling methodology, we conducted an observational study of 49 children in a forest preschool. Video data was collected over 35 weeks. Based on second-by-second coding, and drawing on Interaction Pattern theory, we developed a model of child-nature interaction in this setting. We then tested our hypothesis that relatively wild areas of this environment would be positively associated with child-nature behaviors that were more relational – that is, behaviors demonstrating a bond with nature or respect, including the ability to cohabitate with other lifeforms, and to promote the well-being of nature. Results confirmed this hypothesis. Discussion focuses on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic significance of the 26 modeled child-nature interactions, and the importance of more wild natural environments for human development and flourishing.
Read moreClosing the Gap Through Rewilding, Interacting, and Overcoming
The Research Handbook on Childhoodnature provides a compilation of research in Childhoodnature and brings together existing research themes and seminal authors in the field alongside new cutting-edge research authored by world-class researchers drawing on cross-cultural and international research data. The underlying objectives of the handbook are two-fold: Opening up spaces for Childhoodnature researchers; Consolidating Childhoodnature research into one collection that informs education. The use of the new concept ‘Childhoodnature’ reflects the editors’ and authors’ underpinning belief, and the latest innovative concepts in the field, that as children are nature this should be redefined in this integrating concept. The handbook will, therefore, critique and reject an anthropocentric view of nature. As such it will disrupt existing ways of considering children and nature and reject the view that humans are superior to nature. The chapter “Closing the gap through rewilding, interacting, and overcoming” (pages 391-394) is co-authored by Peter Kahn, a Nature and Health researcher.
Read moreIllnesses and Injuries at Nature Preschools
A binder with a larger version of the log shown above, with spacing set for eight children on each page, was provided to preschool teachers participating in this study. The log was created to enable teachers to systematically and easily record absences due to illness and injuries occurring during the preschool day. All preschool teachers received a 15 to 20 min training on how to use the log prior to the start of the study. Nature preschools, where children spend the entire school day outdoors, are increasingly popular, but their health consequences have not been well researched. This study tested the hypothesis that nature preschools and conventional preschools differ in their illness and injury incidence, by comparing observed illness and injury occurrence in the two types of schools. For 14 weeks, teachers at five nature preschools and four conventional preschools in Seattle, Washington logged absences due to illness. Two nature preschools and three conventional preschools also logged injuries that occurred during the school day. There was no difference in illness incidence by preschool type, and no serious injuries were reported in either setting. Overall, the study found that nature preschools are a healthy and safe child-care model.
Read moreChild-Nature Interaction in a Forest Preschool
Children participating in activities at Fiddleheads Forest School. In 2012 there were only around 25 nature preschools and kindergartens in the United States; now there are well over 250. It is a national movement that is gaining momentum. It is an exciting time because in principle these schools have within them the kernels to transform the world through increasing children’s direct interaction with nature and a more wild nature than that exists in most urban children’s lives. In this paper we begin to characterize forms of child-nature interaction that occur in one specific nature preschool, Fiddleheads Forest Preschool in Seattle, Washington, USA. Based on our observational data, derived through a randomized time-sampling methodology, we modeled child-nature interaction using what we call interaction patterns: characterizations of essential ways of interacting with nature described abstractly enough such that the pattern can be instantiated in different ways, across diverse forms of nature. Specifically, we use a nature language to describe (with photographs) eight interaction patterns: leaning on and hanging from supple tree limbs, climbing high in small tree, looking at wild animals, imitating animals, imagining nature to be something other than it is, making boundaries on earth, pushing the edges of boundaries, and waiting attentively in nature. Through an interaction pattern approach, we seek to provide insight into what is actually happening on the ground at a forest preschool and how that provides a key solution to the problem of environmental generational amnesia.
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